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If you want to put on a complex fireworks show you need some way of controlling a bunch of fireworks with precision. This system has the ability of controlling 144 individual fireworks circuits! Have a look at the great build log, the system was built with some great care.. Thanks Dustin. “I just finished building the main unit. It has a 144 cue capability; there are 48 on the main unit. I will have 4 slats with 24 cues each and 25-foot slat cables. I have tested the system and it fires commercial e-matches with no problem. I have not tested it with wire wrapped fuse yet but I do not think that I will have a problem with it. The unit is in a Seahorse SE-520 Waterproof Case OSHA Yellow in color. My system is built off of two MadeinCHN boards. One of the boards is 433 MHz latching for slat selection the other board is 315 MHz momentary for cue firing. Both boards have selectable encoding via an 8 position Omron B.C.D. pushbutton switch. I have status leds letting me know that I am communicating between the transmitter and receiver. This is a nice little feature to have.”
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The prize this week is a multi tool that is sure to help you MacGyver your way out of trouble. This contest will run for one week (April 17 – 23, 2010) . Ending time is based on central standard time. To enter, identify the item pictured above and give an example of what can be done with it. Please do not give the answer in the comments. Send an email to contest @ hackedgadgets.com with “Name the Thing Contest” as the subject, and the message body consisting of:
The winner will be chosen at random from all of the correct entries. ———————————–———- Added Apr 29, 2010 The item to guess was the light bulb filament The winners are Cole P. (there were 265 entries) ————————————–———- Below are some pictures of the prize.
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This Playstation Portable LED Controller Board project that is sure to make your PSP stand out from the crowd. A tiny surface mount PICAXE microcontroller was mounted to a tiny custom board and custom programmed to provide a nice LED display. Doesn’t seem to be much details of the build, hopefully there is more detail to come. “I wanted the board to fit snugly inside the psp so that if wanted I could keep the umd drive and not have to make any further modifications. I replaced the standard pic with an smd version to keep the whole thing nice and small (the board you see in the images is the prototype version, I’ll replace the through hole resistors with smd type in the next batch i make). I then deved up a prototype pcb with an indicator led to show which mode its in.”
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With this Motion Feedback MP3 Player you need to keep moving otherwise your tunes will get turned down. It uses a SparkFun MP3 Trigger , Parallax PIR Motion Sensor , and an ioBridge IO-204 Controller. Could this be the end of the mint tin cases? The French Vanilla Cafe tin looks to be a winner. “I wanted the IO-204 to change the volume of the MP3 track as motion is detected. As more motion is detected, the volume should increase to a maximum level by stepping through volume levels. I decided on 4 volume levels as a first attempt. When the MP3 player starts a track the volume is low. I also decided to check the motion status every two seconds. If there is continuous motion, over 8 seconds the MP3 player will reach the highest volume level. The volume will step down in volume as activity decreases.”
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Some lucky winner will be getting a free MakerBot! MakerBot Industries has a contest running where all you need to do is upload a cool design to Thingiverse and enter it as part of the contest. Unfortunately we all can’t win a MakerBot but for those who can’t wait to win one Ponoko has recently teamed up with MakerBot Industries to allow you to customize the bot and have Ponoko build it for you. This way you can have your very own MakerBot creation come to life. Via: Make “To celebrate (one last time) the success of our Desktop Manufacturing issue of MAKE, we’ve teamed up with the folks at MakerBot Industries. We’re going to be giving away a CupCake CNC, in the first ever official MakerBot CupCake CNC giveaway and Thingiverse design challenge! One lucky 3D designer will win a Deluxe CupCake CNC kit for his/her contribution to Thingiverse, and five runners up will receive something special too! Here’s what you do to enter: 1. Imagine something you’d like to see printed on a MakerBot CupCake CNC!
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Laser cutters are all the rage right now. Prices have come down quite a bit over the past 10 years but they are still not nice and cheap so it would still be a purchase that would hurt a bit. Interestingly there are lots of people who are making DIY CNC machines but not that many making DIY Laser Cutters and DIY Laser Engravers. Have a look at this DIY Laser Cutter build that is ongoing over at BuildLog.Net. The goal is to build a DIY laser cutter for around $1000. If you are thinking of making your own use this site as a resource since the design is open source and all of the drawings are available on the site. “I want to approach this in a very serialized manner to prevent wasting excess money or time. The design should be very scalable to more powerful lasers. I will start with the lowest power laser as a proof of concept. I have built several successful CNC routers from scratch so I feel confident on the mechanics. The laser issues will all be new. There is a lot of mystery on the Chinese parts. I will try to fill in all I can along the way.”
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Over at the Arduino X10 Collection site there is a two part series in the making of a DIY Geiger Counter Project which is built with an Arduino Microcontroller. Part 2 can be found here. I can’t think of a time I was looking for a geiger counter but you never know. The project is built around a Russian Military SBM-20 Hard Beta and Gamma GM Detector. If you are thinking about making one keep in mind that the circuit has some very high voltage involved so be careful! “There are 2 types of tubes. Those that have a mica window are the most sensitive. They will detect alpha and beta particles as well a gamma rays. Because of the mica, they are more fragile and generally are more expensive. The other type, like the SSBM-20 which I used, have only the metal jacket. They will detect gamma rays (the most penetrating) and some beta particles (more easily stopped). Considering the SSBM-20 is all metal, it does a good job with beta – as long as you put the sample right on the tube. Uranium is a big beta emitter, so some sensitivity to beta is a good thing.”
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